


Five Times Cassian Didn't Sleep (and one time he did)

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Slow Burn, Space Spanish, childhood ptsd mentioned, first order is mentioned, romance only appears at end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: There are few times in Cassian's life that it has been safe enough for him to find rest. Slowly, though, that changes.Heavy angst, but happy ending!
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Finn, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	Five Times Cassian Didn't Sleep (and one time he did)

1.

Cassian fights sleep with each breath, willing himself to stay awake, despite his mother’s gentle lullaby. There’s so much more to do, so many more stories to read. Even though he is only four years old, he dreams of adventures, of flying, of so much more than just his small home in the capital city of Fest.

“Vete a dormir, Cassian,” his mother whispers, before flicking the lights off again. She remains standing there, only long enough to sing through a lullaby he insists he’s outgrown.

“ _Bajo de sus alas,_

_acurrucaditos.”_

Cassian only hears the first part of the last verse, before burrowing under the blankets. Once the door closes, he ignores her command, stubbornly switching on the tiny hand-lumo he’d stolen from his father’s workshop. Hiding under his cover, he returns to his drawing; a sky full of stars and his very own ship soaring among them.

Someday, he promises, he will travel far, so far that he will see every star on every horizon.

* * *

2.

It’s too dangerous to sleep now. Cassian knows this, as well as he knows all the other rules of war, learned before he was even old enough to learn to pilot.’ There are no lullabies now, here in the ruins of his hometown. Only the sound of blaster fire and bombs and the crunch of boots on rubble.

Cassian tries not to think of things like lullabies, knowing they’ll only remind him of the parents he lost. Instead, he remembers the drills taught to him by the other soldiers, remembers how to strip a blaster for cleaning, and how to sneak in the shadows so that he cannot be spotted by a sniper.

He holds his hand-lumo closer, knowing the light is both a safety and a risk. It lets him see the bombs he is assembling but may draw a clone trooper’s attention.

“¡Apúurate, Cassian!” His sister urges him, wrapping his hands around hers, pleading with him to keep assembling the bombs that are their only hope to stay safe. The horizon ahead of them is full of smoke, littered with rubble, and all too often blotted out by the massive shape of the AT-TE, always on patrol, always searching for the lights of those still fighting against the Republic.

Cassian works quickly and never once looks up at the stars.

* * *

3.

The Rebels provide him with his own bed pallet and Cassian stares at it as if it is no more than a holo-image. He doesn’t need it. Doesn’t need the space, the pillows, the blankets, to say nothing of the luxury of a whole room to himself. He doesn’t need a place to sleep, not when his stolen moments of shut-eye in cockpits and corners are part of what has kept him alive this long.

Senator Organa tells Cassian he cannot give up his room, that there are already enough questions being asked of the newest recruit. The Clone Wars are still too recent of a memory for some in the Rebellion to trust a quiet man with a Festian accent.

But the senator doesn’t command Cassian to sleep, nor would he listen if the older man did so. Instead, Cassian waits for both Draven and Organa to leave, before he sits on the bed. He rests his face in his hands for the count of three long breaths.

Then he stands, once more ready to report for duty. There’s so much more to do. So many more battles to fight. There can be no time for rest, not for him, not now.

* * *

4.

Cassian’s nails dig into his palms as he forces himself to stay awake. The cold wind whips around him, nearly knocking him off his perch high above the city below. He’s sat here for six hours, waiting for his target to appear.

And he’ll wait another six, if he needs to. Even if the thin Imperial Sniper uniform offers no protection from the chill. Even if he longs for sleep.

He will not give in to that human part of him that pleads for rest. The mission needs him to stay alert. The Alliance needs him to complete this mission. 

The responsibility is a heavy, familiar comfort on his shoulders. He doesn't know how to rest, doesn't know how to stop moving forward, when so many lives depend on his ability to forgo sleep. His suffering is small in comparison to the cost if he fails. 

Cassian promises himself he will not fail.

This will be his second sleepless night, though the last was spent in the barracks of the enemy. Every part of being undercover is dangerous. If he falls asleep, a true part of him might slip out. So much of his own self has been hidden in shadows, tucked away from people who may ask questions, and emotions that might cause him to shatter.

Instead, Cassian remains ever-focused on the horizon, on the battles ahead. He thinks of those, and instead of sleeping, prepares himself for the next fight.

* * *

5.

The night before their mission briefing, Cassian cannot sleep. The events of Eadu hang heavy over him, leading him to pace the halls of the Massassi Temple. His room, as always, remains untouched. He heads down that hallway anyway, not to go to bed, but to pause a moment in front of others’ doors.

Bodhi’s, where there is the song of soft, gentle singing, a lullaby in a language Cassian does not know, sung by a man who has lost the family who must have taught the song to him. Cassian closes his eyes, wishing he could give the pilot peace, an assurance that though one’s planet is lost, one’s songs could live on.

But he cannot find the words.

When he finds Baze’s room empty, he panics for a moment, only to hear the man’s gruff voice saying surprisingly gentle things, somewhere behind the door of Chirrut’s room. Cassian smiles, glad that at least two of his companions are not alone tonight.

Part of him considers turning back before reaching Erso’s room. A great deal had been said between them already. What if her door was open? What if she wanted to speak to him?

But Cassian is no coward. He moves forward, toward her room, stopping only when he hears the soft, muffled noise of someone crying into a pillow. He knows the sound well. He knows, too, what it feels like to whisper the name of a parent who will never again sing a lullaby.

The door was left slight;y ajar. And though he had prided himself always on his soft, stir, footsteps, tonight, one boot lands on a creaking floor joist. Jyn’s crying ceases. “Who’s there?” she asks.

“Me,” he replies, knowing his voice will give him away.

“What the hell are you doing up?”

His chuckle is low and dry. “I could ask the same thing.”

THere’s the noise of fabric rustling then Jyn appears in the doorway. Her choppy brown hair is spikier than usual, tufted up like a pinecone, and her eyes are rimmed with red. “What, the big bad captain couldn’t sleep either?”

His eyebrow arches at her comment.

Her shoulders slump. “I… I’m sorry.” She says the words slowly as if the entire phrase is one that is rusty from lack of use in her vocabulary. “If you were checking in on me, thank you.”

Cassian nods. “Go to bed, Jyn.”

She shakes her head. “Not unless you do too.”

His arms fold. Not for the first time, he’s confronted with just how stars-damned stubborn this woman is. “I’m not tired,” he mutters.

“Liar.”

“So I assume you’re well-rested then, for you to avoid sleep?”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “C’mon. Is there anywhere on this base to grab a drink? Or even a cup of tea?”

That night, Cassian does not sleep. Instead, something a great deal like a light grows between him and Jyn, a warm connection forged over soft, gentle discussions and cups of hot tea. The light between them will grow, until it is bright enough for even the two stubborn soldiers to notice that ahead of them, their paths will lead to the same horizon, and a life spent under the same stars.

* * *

1.

The stars streak past him as he sits in the cockpit of his ship. Each one represents so much more than just a beam of light, he knows, but for the moment, they all seem to blur, turning into nothing more than the soft glow of a hand-lumo like he’d had as a child.

A child… like the one that sleeps in the bunk of his ship now. A small boy, stolen by the so-called First Order. They’d found him hiding from the orders that had their troopers, not much older than him, training their blasters on Jyn and Cassian. The other child-soldiers had to be taken to therapy centers, to undo the years of programming, but this boy had not chosen to fight. He had hidden, holding a small light close to him, to see in the dark. Somehow, this boy, given only a number by the First Order, had kept his heart, his courage, and his own chosen name close.

As close as he’d held the little hand-lumo, a more modern twin to the same lamp Cassian had once read by the light of. And so, Finn, as he’d been asked to be called, was rescued, scooped up into Jyn’s arms, and carried safely onto the transport ship.

Cassian had already learned that the boy would not be able to sleep without the light, and so had tucked Finn into the bunk, before singing a halting lullaby in a language not spoken for years.

“ _...duermen los pollitos hasta_

_el otro día.”_

The song was a promise that this boy will not grow up amid war, as he had. “Sleep, Finn,” he whispers. “And know you are safe.”

Cassian hums through the tune once more, until the boy finally falls asleep. Then, he leaves, heading back up to the cockpit, to stare out at the star-streaked space ahead of the viewscreen. Many thoughts cross his mind. How this is now the third war he will fight in. How the darkness seems ever present, no matter how close they get to peace.

The remnants of the lullaby pull at Cassian’s own emotions, tugging at his eyelids. Each breath he takes brings sleep a little closer. A moment later, soft footfalls announce Jyn’s arrival within the cockpit. Cassian swings his feet up onto the command center to give her room on the chair. Much like a loth-cat, Jyn insists on finding room in chairs and spots occupied by other people.

His arm curls comfortably around her shoulder and he presses an absent-minded kiss to her forehead. “You did well, today,” she says.

“It’s not enough though, is it?” he sighs. “There’s so many of them. I thought… I thought we’d won.”

“We did,” Jyn replies, squeezing his hand. “And we will, again.”

That, somehow, is enough for him. Those words remind him of the wonderful, though short, years they’d enjoyed after Endor. Before this. It reminds him there is so much more to fight for, so little to fear. There is a future ahead of all of them, their little family of three now, and he will fight for it, as his family had fought for him. 

Cassian will not fail Finn, nor the cause.

He yawns.

“Sleep, Captain,” Jyn says.

And finally, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments welcome!


End file.
